Destructural Video

The medium-specific fault as an aesthetic in past, present and

future video and electronic moving image art


John McAndrew


























Submitted as part of the assessment for BA (Hons) Fine Art Module FAR3001

Friday 18th December 2009
i
Acknowledgements

I would like to say thank you to everyone who has helped me out during the
course of researching and writing this dissertation in particular my family,
my friends and my associates in university, my dissertation tutor Jane Topping
for providing sound advice and support, Anthony Discenza, Clint Enns, Iman
Moradi, Scott Sinclair, everyone who replied to my post on Rhizome, all the
members of my Destructural Video group on Facebook, LUX, REWIND,
Electronic Arts Interlux, Video Data Bank and the Henry Moore Institute
Library in Leeds.

For more information regarding destructural video please visit:


Destructural Video Blog

http://destructuralvideo.blogspot.com/

Facebook Group

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=117490763097
















ii
Contents:

Acknowledgements i.
Contents ii.
Abstract iii.

1. Introduction 1.

2. Chapter 1: 3.
Video: David Hall, Mary Lucier, Bill Viola, Lynda Benglis, David
Critchley, Pipilotti Rist, Anthony Horowitz
3. Chapter 2: 9.
The Medium Vs The Media: David Hall, Martha Rosler, Anthony
Discenza, Takeshi Murata, Paul B. Davis
3. Chapter 3: 17
The Signal: The Vasulkas (Woody Vasulka & Steina), Karl Klomp,
BOTBORG (Joe Musgrove & Scott Sinclair)
5. Conclusion 24
6. Illustrations List 26
7. Illustrations 28
8. Appendix 1. 37
What Is Destructural Video?
9. Appendix 2. 38
Destructural Video - Rhizome
10. DVD tracklisting 46
11. References 47
12. Bibliography 50



iii
Abstract

In this text I will be exploring a genre of video and electronic moving image
art that exploit medium-specific faults in technology and their resulting
glitches as an aesthetic, which I have termed destructural. Taking inspiration
from other artistic fields such as experimental music, action painting and
structural filmmaking, alongside current discussions in art regarding glitch
aesthetics (coinciding with the 2009 publication of Iman Moradi and Ant
Scotts book Glitch: Designing Imperfection), artists working in this genre
have evolved video technology beyond its original limited capabilities,
ironically through its misuse and by celebrating its mistakes. In this text I will
explore the history and development of artists exploring destructural
approaches to the medium; from early formalist experiments with cameras and
videotape; to independent artists that employ the glitch in retaliation against
the mainstream media; to the development of image processing tools which
allow direct manipulation of the electronic signal; to recent digital video and
new media artworks that provoke pixels, compression artefacts and glitches to
act in unusual ways; to artists giving dated technology a new lease of life
through creative misuse; and finally to recent experiments in achieving
synaesthesia through live audiovisual improvisation which bring all these
influences into perfect unison.
1
Introduction

The glitch is an unwanted technical discrepancy which, in video and
electronic moving image technology at least, appears as damage within the
audio-visual field. Iman Moradi states that the glitch is neither the cause, nor
the error itself, it is simply the product of an error and more specifically its
visual manifestation (Moradi & Scott, 2009, p.8). The glitch acts as a
reminder that video is still a relatively new technology that is continually
being developed, tested and improved.

Ultimately however, electronic image technology will never become perfect
due to its man-made origins of creation, ripe with human flaws and
shortcomings. Both audiovisual technology and the human body operate as a
complex circuit of wires or neurons, through which electrical signals power
along them, deciding which parts to turn on and off to operate - with even the
slightest inconsistency in the circuit, a temporary lapse of information can
provoke a glitch in the system. Whether it perpetrates itself as a garbled video
image in technology, or as a lapse in speech or memory in human beings, the
glitch is more inherent in our life encounters than we often realise. Taking
Marshall McLuhans famous phrase, the medium is the message (McLuhan,
1964, p.7) to its logical extreme, a number of artists both past and present -
have found attraction to these medium-specific faults and have purposefully
incorporated glitch techniques into bodies of work that raise questions not
only about audiovisual technology as a successful artistic medium, but also
about its role in relation to the human condition and nature.
2
Destructural video (McAndrew, 2009) is a self-invented term to describe the
work and philosophy of these video and electronic moving image artists.
Taking inspiration from the work of experimental music composers, abstract
expressionist painters and structural filmmakers, destructural video artists
employ these avant-garde aesthetics within electronic visuals. Destructural
[sic] is not a real word, but rather a portmanteau (or more aptly, a corruption)
of the words deconstruct, structural and destruct, as I believe that just
like the artists I write about have operated or reworked technology in ways
their original manufacturers had never intended for them to be used, similarly
an appropriate reworking of language to accurately describe the artworks of
these artists should also follow suit. Likewise, whilst destructural may be a
revisionist term applied to a niche subject within the history of both past and
present video art, video itself is intrinsically a revisionist medium, dictated by
its ability to rewind, record and rewrite its course of time with ease.

I wish to argue how destructural approaches to video and moving image have
advanced these technologies in new exciting ways - not just by exposing
faults, but by also developing the resulting glitches as new visual aesthetics -
whilst these artists simultaneously revolt against these resulting advances,
often as their techniques and tools are assimilated by the mainstream media. I
also wish to question current and future technologies in order to understand
whether the glitch still has a future as we move closer towards a reliance on
data as a digital intangible, rather than degradable physical entities.


3
Chapter 1: Video (From the Vidicon Tube to the VHS Tape)
David Hall, Mary Lucier, Bill Viola, David Critchley, Pipilotti Rist, Anthony
Horowitz

When Sony released the Portapak in 1967 (Fig 1), consisting of a handheld
camera with inbuilt microphone, battery and a separate video tape recorder -
the VTR itself having already appeared for general sale in 1965 - artists
considered this an economical and immediate alternative to film, for videotape
as a electromagnetic format allowed a user to rewind and rerecord over the
tape, enabling reuse of its medium. Its relatively lightweight design also
enabled the camera and video tape recorder to be carried around easily by one
person; an impracticality before due to the size of video tape recorders
(SMECC, 2007). As with all pioneering technologies however, the Portapak
camera was rife with faults which restricted artists from using video in the
same way film could be used. Due to its limited capabilities, the footage that it
shot could not be broadcast on television, and it was only with the arrival of
the Time Base Corrector in 1972 that deviation errors in the video signal
caused by inconsistencies in equipment could be electronically corrected
(Lovejoy, 2004, p. 117). The luxury of access to editing facilities for many
artists allowing the ability to accurately and cleanly edit videos was not
conceivable in the early years of personal video equipment. Whilst many
artists would accept these faults, a number of them would test the limits of the
camera and the videotape, finding attraction to the faults inherent in this
technology through the unorthodox manipulation of the medium. Working
directly outside of the influence and control of the mainstream media
establishment would give rise to the destructural aesthetic in video art.
4
One of the major faults of the Portapak (and indeed many professional video
cameras of the time too) was the accidental burn of the surface of the vidicon
tube - the cameras equivalent of the cathode ray tube found in older model
televisions - whenever it was pointed towards an exceptionally bright colour
contrasted against darkness; producing a ghostly path of light for every
subsequent movement, until it slowly dissipated. The Portapak, limited to one
vidicon tube as opposed to the three used in professional equipment, was
therefore very susceptible to damage and this trailing effect can be
unintentionally seen in numerous early videos made at the time.

David Hall, one of the first artists in the UK working with video, explored the
creative use of the burnt vidicon tube through a series of experiments in his
1973-74 videotape Vidicon Inscriptions (Fig. 2) (Track 1). In one part of the
video he directs the camera lens at a light bulb, effectively drawing with the
camera; a literal manifestation of Douglas Daviss video manifesto statement
that The Camera is a Pencil (1974, p.437). As time and movement appear as
one continuous evolving image framed within the television screen, these
experiments with light as an expression of time and bodily movement can be
seen in the context of the action paintings of Jackson Pollock, as well as the
auto-destructive art of Gustav Metzger. In a later part of the video, Hall sets
up the camera on a tripod aimed directly at a mirror; the camera and artist
reflected to the left of the screen illuminated by a bright light. By repeating
the action of slowly placing a board in front of the lens, and moving the
camera and himself to the right before removal of the board, each time the
5
artist shows a trail of light and movement, resulting in what Hall calls, a
stratified consolidation of past and present time as a single image (1975, p.9).

Hall would later expand on these experiments for a public art installation in
1975, coincidentally the same year that the artist Mary Lucier produced Dawn
Burn (Fig. 3) which was another important experiment in camera misuse and
a pioneering example of the video installation. Aiming a camera directly at a
sunrise over the course of seven days - in direct response to being told not to
do just that (Drake, 1998) - and presenting the results on seven monitors to
show the effects of the suns path burning the vidicon tubes, Lucier presented
the destructive yet progressive effects of nature against technology, signifying
light as the first time-based medium.

Bill Viola also explored the effects of the burnt vidicon tube from as early as
1973, but it was his 1981 colour videotape Hatsu-Yume (First Dream) (Fig. 4)
(Track 2) made in Japan where he produced perhaps the most stunning
employments of this flaw in his night-time slow motion sequences. In a scene
where he is being driven through a bustling city with his camera aimed at the
street lamps above, the erratic movement of the camera coupled with the
abundance of light sources produces some of the most sublimely beautiful and
painterly of light trails ever seen in video art: Viola, in an accompanying
statement to the video (1981, p.80), stated Video treat light like water - it
becomes a fluid on the video tube. Perhaps as an inadvertent result of this
video being made - Sony had lent Viola brand new camera equipment whilst
working under the first artist-in-residence scheme for them - the vidicon tube
6
would soon be superseded by the charge coupled device (or CCD), which did
not suffer from these same flaws. Although vidicon tube technology would
nearly completely vanish from future video art as a result, it did not go
without, fittingly, leaving a historical trail of light in its memory.

The sculptor Lynda Benglis, known previously for her melted, formless
sculptures using layers of wax and latex paint, would take a deconstructive
approach to the video medium itself in her early videotapes. In her first
videotape Noise (1972) (Track 5), Benglis brings attention to the limitations
of playback and recording technology through refilming numerous pre-
recorded generations of video and static from a television, exploring ways to
distort image and sound. Most interestingly however, she intentionally
attempts to edit the videotape at certain points, producing violent tracking
lines and sound disruptions which break up the image and sound quality
noticeably. As a deliberate action against the rules of the videotape medium, it
is an early example of celebrating the glitch in video art, with medium specific
faults being encouraged by the artist through improper use of the equipment.

The manipulation of the playback speed of videotape can provoke other
medium specific faults. In David Critchleys Static Acceleration (1977) (Fig.
5) (Track 4), the footage of a previously seen action whereby the artist turns
his head violently from left to right and back again in time to the increasing
tempo of the sound of a ball hitting a tennis racquet, is played back in slow
motion via the manipulation of the tape speed control on an edit deck, so that
sound and head movements play at a steady tempo, rather than an quickening
7
rate. Through this process, properties or anomalies inherent in the medium
(Critchley, 1978, p. 12) are revealed, namely the electronic scan fields or
frames of video, which stutter in frequency depending on the attempts to
control time. In a review for its screening, David Hall asserts that this piece
simply, yet admirably, combines and manipulates time and fundamental
aspects of the process in a carefully considered work only possible in, and
about, video (1977, p. 21). Contextually, Static Acceleration can be seen as
an aesthetical response to the pioneering photography work of Eadweard
Muybridge, with both artists exploring time fragmentally within their medium
and employing the grid background as a pseudo-scientific reference.

In her early video work, the Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist employs extended
techniques of video speed playback to effective use. In her 1986 videotape Im
Not the Girl Who Misses Much (Fig. 6) (Track 5), produced whilst she was
still a student, the artist faces the camera and excitedly dances and sings along
to John Lennons song Happiness Is A Warm Gun. The footage is slightly out
of focus - we can only see a faintly detailed blur of the artist - and the
videotape recording has been manipulated in such a way to speed up her
actions and sounds, highlighting numerous flaws in the videotape medium
over the course of the video. With the image out of focus, our attention is
directed more to the distortions of the video tape, much like in one of
Bengliss refilming experiments. In (Entlastungen) Pipilottis Fehler
(Absolution - Pipilottis Mistakes) (1988) (Fig. 7) (Track 6), Rist expands
upon these techniques in a narrative exploring her own mistakes in life. Her
concurrent practice of working as a technician whilst making the video
8
enabled her to understand how video could be unusually manipulated; in a
1994 interview with Christoph Doswald (1994, p.124) she explained some of
her processes including her overridden use of the Time Base Corrector,
ironically to cause rather than hide glitches:

I subjected the images to all kinds of interference: I played them too quickly for two
simultaneously activated recorders, then put the pictures through a time base corrector that
evens out irregularities. That was only one of twenty-five kinds of disturbance that I
experimented with on the tape. Asking too much or too little of the machines resulted in
pictures that I was thoroughly familiar with, my inner pictures - my psychosomatic symptoms.

The more complex a technology becomes, the easier the electronic signal can
become muddled to reveal its very foundations at the same time, even the
simplest of procedures can provoke a glitch, if repeated excessively enough
times. Perhaps the ultimate statement against the reliability of analog
videotape and its technology came from Anthony Horowitz in his 1990
videotape Maxell (Fig. 8) who by employing two video recorders to record
and rerecord the loss of image quality that occurs over multiple generations of
VHS tape. Using the Maxell brand of videotape, with the word Maxell
embellished on the screen, the artist lays waste to this companys (or any
videotape companies for that matter) claims of accurate reproduction by
turning a flawed technology against itself, amplifying every discrepancy that
appears - like a photocopy of a photocopy - until the word Maxell is
eventually consumed by generations of static and noise.


9
Chapter 2: The Medium Vs The Media (Difficult Technicalities)
David Hall, Martha Rosler, Anthony Discenza, Takeshi Murata, Paul B.
Davis

With the rise of independent video making - a potentially revolutionary idea
since video could be (and was to a degree) used by anyone, regardless of
gender, race or sexuality a questioning of the hegemony of mainstream
broadcasting also took place. Using television news programmes as their most
effective source of derision, a number of artists discovered that employing
technical difficulties could temporarily falter the professionalism of
broadcasting companies to raise public awareness of the deceptiveness of
television, as well as the ulterior motives of these networks who broadcast
truth, no matter how biased it may be to appease their funders.

When the UK artist David Hall was commissioned to produce a video artwork
for broadcast on the BBC programme Arena in 1976, he produced This Is A
Television Receiver (Fig. 9) (Track 7) - a remake of sorts of his earlier video
installation This Is A Video Monitor (1973) in which footage of a person
describing their visual and audible representation on the equipment they are
being watched on in formalist terms, is refilmed from playback over a number
of generations until reduced to noise. It also held similarities with 7 TV Pieces
(1971), an earlier television intervention in association with Scottish
Television. In This Is A Television Receiver, Hall had the newsreader Richard
Baker read out a similar text to the camera starting with the line This is a
television Receiver, which is a box to describe the television shell itself, later
10
reinforcing that the light, passing through the curved glass surface[of the
screen] form shapes which often appear as images, in this case, the image
of a man but it is not a man (Hall, 1976), and that the sounds he speaks
appear to be real but are not. By refilming this footage repeatedly, each time
adding distortions upon distortions to this presentation in circumstances
almost exactly similar to composer Alvin Luciers 1969 tape composition I
Am Sitting in a Room, this highly subversive video - broadcast unannounced
for maximum effectiveness - revealed a then-household name television figure
to be a paradox; whilst he is known as a messenger of truth, his sound and
image is false and an illusion. In an interview with Chris Meigh-Andrews
(2000), Hall recalled the effect this video had at the time:

My mother - forget the art elite - was absolutely distraught when she saw that piece, because
she believed in Richard Baker. He was, and had been, the principal news reader. The one
person for whom you could suspend all disbelief was the person reading the news. Someone
well-loved and seen for so long. Then when his image began to disintegrate and he started to
be critical in a sense, of television indirectly, through what he was saying, that whole
deconstruction, floored her whole belief.

Other artists have subverted the power of the mainstream media through the
use of actual news footage of a suspect nature. In Martha Roslers If It's Too
Bad to Be True, It Could Be DISINFORMATION (1985) (Fig. 10) (Track 8),
the artist plunders NBC and other American broadcasters 1984 reportage of an
impending attack from the communist country Nicaragua, after they
supposedly received MIG fighter planes from Moscow however, this news
would later be revealed to be completely fabricated (Sklar, 1988, pp.209-212).
11
Rosler plays back news footage and inserts intermittent electronic distortions
to the sound and image, mutilating the newsreaders script with sound fading
in and out of isolated phrases which are then superimposed as a fragmented
scrolling text, rendered absurd. The video image distorts violently with static
and vertical hold rolling a literal representation of the lack of information or
truth within the news story. Rosler wrote that the word disinformation is a
term of art for systematic government lying, also termed psyop (psychological
operations), against the home audience (1983) and she believes that
privately-funded broadcasting institutions like NBC who present a biased
form of propaganda in place of the news help to over-exaggerate such
rumours, creating public fear and paranoia. Ending the video on an ironic note
with a macho and rather glamorous TV commercial for the US Army only
ramifies her disbeliefs in the mainstream media and the psychological and
emotional games a higher power can wield on an unquestioning audience.

Whilst Rosler critiques the news using a relatively minimalist real-time
approach, the digital video artist Anthony Discenza instead use video in a
maximalist fashion, condensing hours of television footage into short
dcollages using generations of time shifted playback. In the case of
Backscatter (2005) (Fig. 11) (Track 9) - a 10 minute video created by taking
3 separate 8-hour chunks of CNN, all recorded during the first week of the
Iraq conflict, and playing them at fast-forward while recording the sped-up
signal onto another tape (Discenza, 2009) Discenza uses a modern day
news story which also has elements of political disinformation, similar to
Roslers videotape. However, Discenzas working processes are more time-
12
based, revealing the increased influx of redundant information we receive in
news programming - in the San Francisco Chronicle, Kenneth Baker noted
that Backscatter probably describes public memory of the invasion as media
event as well as anything could, distilling war reportage to a fizz of
information with no blood, no suffering, no death, nothing out of control,
everything accompanied by graphics (Baker, 2006). Discenza reduces the
modern day news format to its essence: an overabundance of technical tricks,
distracting us from realising that news broadcasters never really know the full
story either.

It might be ironic to consider that the graphics employed by mainstream
television networks have their origins in the inventiveness of the pioneering
work of image processing artists (as discussed in Chapter 3) - only the
mainstream medias uses these techniques at their most sanitised level.
Discenzas video perhaps suggests that what they may lack in aggressiveness,
they more than make up for in sheer volume. It could be argued that this
assimilation is only fair game however, as artists have often appropriated the
tools and techniques of broadcasters and expanded on them in an attempt to
question the media; the guerrilla techniques favoured by groups like
Videofreex can be seen as a forerunner of news programmes reporting on the
scene or accepting amateur videos from the public, whilst the editing
techniques of the underground Scratch Video movement were soon
assimilated by broadcasters wanting edgy visuals. Likewise, since the arrival
of the video tape recorder in the 1970s, allowing video artists such as Dara
13
Birnbaum to use copyrighted films and television programmes as source
material, artists have also appropriated media-created works in their own art.

The availability of personal computers in the 1990s enabled artists to work in
the digital domain and opened up new possibilities for video, music and other
art forms to transcend their medium. With the popularity of the internet as a
creative communication tool, as well as the rise of illegal file sharing
programs allowing copyrighted material to be freely shared between users,
artists had an incredible wealth of information available outside of the control
of television broadcasters, film distributors and music companies. The
limitations of the technology at the time revealed new glitches inherent in
digital video files - impatient users (such as myself) who would attempt to
open up a video file before it was fully complete would sometimes see
interesting compression artefacts take place, resulting in curious artists
investigating the data of compressed video files to find out how they could
manipulate these medium-specific glitches.

Datamoshing involves removing or replicating parts of the data found in
compressed video files which can then undermine the structure of the video
codec, producing a painterly bleeding pixel effect as the movement of pixels
from a succeeding scene shift the frozen pixels of a former image, revealing a
new image escaping from underneath old pixels. Its resulting effect, when
used effectively, can be mesmerising to watch duration and space appear to
fold within itself in a swirl of vibrantly coloured pixels, or when frames are
copied repeatedly together, pixels merge together into an abstract, common
14
denominator of coloured artefacts the digital equivalent of the end result in
Halls This is a Television Receiver and Horowitzs Maxell.

Takeshi Murata is, whilst certainly not the first to use this technique, probably
the most well-known of artists to have explored it, having set the standard for
how datamoshing could be employed. In his datamoshing work he uses
memorable copyrighted films as his source footage, ranging from the black
and white horror masterpiece Black Sunday (1960) to the action film First
Blood (1982). Using select scenes from these films (he only uses one film at a
time for each project), he creates incredible psychedelic animations where
characters melt and morph into the scenery and vice versa, depending on the
juxtaposition of the sequences he joins together. In an animation like Monster
Movie (2005) (Fig. 12) (Track 10), Murata goes beyond the usual practice of
editing video frames together by instead editing parts of the data itself,
allowing Murata to control the resulting glitches to a certain degree. Working
one frame at a time, he reorders scenes from the 1981 film Caveman in a
minimum of ways - normal, reversed, duplicated, reverse-duplicated or re-
encoded - to devastating effect, recalling the structural work of filmmakers
Paul Sharits and Bruce Conner. Unlike other datamoshing artists, Murata
exerts a total precision over the video codec - his animations can take up to a
year to complete (Hirshhorn, 2007) and it shows. Muratas purposeful
employment of the glitch transcends most others in the datamoshing genre by
giving the glitch purpose, as the eponymous primitive monster of the video
emerges from a primordial soup of pixels into an aggressive environment,
resulting in a Darwinist clash between nature. Muratas addition of a funky
15
soundtrack to the animation gives it a music video quality that perhaps betrays
the original source, yet his editing abilities makes the original film his own. A
video like Monster Movie suggests that the glitch can be beautiful in its own
regard, but also implies the danger that can lie ahead if artists merely use this
technique (and therefore, the glitch in technology) as a gimmicky transitional
effect as if a video is merely corrupt, rather than a technique to be respected.

In Paul B. Daviss Compression Studies 1-4 (2007), he uses an assortment of
videos taken from file sharing sites and places like YouTube. Davis is
associated with a group of like-minded young art collectives such as BEIGE
and Paper Rad, who use retro iconography from the 1980s and 1990s, such as
computer games, old television cartoons and tape culture, combined in a
variety of multimedia artworks. In his Compression Studies, Davis creates
audiovisual collages or mash-ups; a term stemming from combining two or
more different songs together which has its origins in mp3 culture
(contextually it also has similarities to the sound collages of Christian Marclay
and the plunderphonics of composer John Oswald). For example,
Compression Study #1 (Track 11) (Fig. 13) made with Jacob Ciocci of Paper
Rad remixes the pop music videos of Rihannas Umbrella, and Zombie by
The Cranberries, with each artist bursting into each others clips in time to the
looped chorus, whilst Compression Study #4 (Track 12) is an imaginative
merging of Matthew Barneys Cremaster 3 with Barney the Dinosaur,
juxtaposing elitist art culture with disposable pop culture. However, Davis
(2008) would later write about his unhappiness with this work, stating that:

16
Its like admitting that the only gesture youre capable of making as an artist is actually the
edit, and when I grow up I really dont want to be an editor. Especially with the computer,
when what youre dealing with are formats, its especially prevalent. [] In my show I think
my work failed in this regard. I mean, messing with Cremaster 3 was obvious and hence
accessible, and then also messing with Rick James, Rihanna, the Cranberries, homemade
YouTube videos and Ultimate Fighting Championships was meant to suggest that pop culture
content didnt matter. But it did matter - no matter how haX0r3d the compression codec was
and hence how messed up the picture on the wall looked.

Datamoshing has since achieved a level of notoriety on internet discussion
boards like Rhizome (Boling, 2009) after two music videos by Kanye West
and Chairlift - both of which were heavily dependent on the technique
stylistically - were released in quick succession to each other. Many criticised
the popularisation of this video effect and its new nickname datamoshing,
having previously been referred to as compression artefacts (OReilly, 2009).
Ironically, there is a sense of unease amongst artists who use datamoshing
now, the technique having apparently been tainted by the mainstream medias
usage; Davis himself wrote for his last exhibition Define Your Terms (Or
Kanye West Fucked Up My Show) at Seventeen Gallery (2009) that the very
language I was using to critique pop content from the outside was now itself a
mainstream cultural reference. One cant help but notice the karmic irony of
artists stealing from mainstream culture and not expecting theft back. An
interesting upside to this breakthrough however, is that datamoshing is now
available for the public to explore via YouTube tutorials by username
datamosher (2009), who has a three part instructional video series on how to
datamosh. Perhaps in a way, this is a fitting end to datamoshing after all; what
began as a file sharing experiment, evolved into an idea sharing experiment.
17
Chapter 3: The Signal: (Video Processing = Video Progressing)
The Vasulkas (Woody Vasulka & Steina), Karl Klomp, BOTBORG (Scott
Sinclair & Joe Musgrove)

By deconstructing the video camera, television and videotape medium through
formalist exercises to reveal its electronic emulation of reality, artists had
gained a rudimentary understanding of how this technology worked, but it was
still bound by the technology provided by its original manufacturers.
However, with the rise of circuit-based musical instruments such as the Moog
synthesizer in 1964 allowing new sound possibilities using electronics,
creative technicians began to evolve the video medium by making visual
equivalents of these synthesizers (often through the reuse of existing
components) to process electronic images in new ways too. With a number of
artists working alongside these technicians to produce further devices for their
creative abilities, artists now had the ability to independently shape the future
of video for their own benefit.

Perhaps some of the most impressive and destructural examples of image
processed video are the works of Czech filmmaker and engineer Woody
Vasulka and Icelandic musician Steina, collectively known in the 1970s as the
Vasulkas. Having worked with video since 1969, the Vasulkas have
continuously sought to evolve its potential with the assistance of technicians
who built image processing devices which could manipulate and control the
electronic signal directly. The Vasulkas practice is characterised by trial and
error experimentation, with a vast recorded video output of the 1970s largely
18
made up of self-reflexive sketches, exercises or performances produced in
their studio (which looks more like a laboratory due to the sheer amount of
technology they owned) showcasing the capabilities of their technology,
rather than making the techniques secondary to a narrative.

Much as the pioneering work of the first video artist Nam June Paik was
influenced by his associations with experimental music - his exhibition of
prepared television sets in 1963 which paved the way for artists working with
electronic forms of media were directly inspired by meeting the composer
John Cage, who prepared musical instruments by adding objects to their
mechanisms to produce new resulting sounds the Vasulkas were similarly
inspired to work in video via the influence of music, another time-based
medium. Woody Vasulka in a conversation (Carlut, 1992, p.500) stated:

I mostly learned from music, in the sense of how to organise these new patterns. You know,
all of these waveform controls and means of composition for our early video artefacts were
developed first as audio. They were directly related to the development of early musical
instruments. In video, the instruments played similar functions. I believe that what I was
doing was a form of practical philosophy. For the first time, I understood the speed of light as
not just a part of a formula by Einstein. I could suddenly see how the signal struggles through
the wires, how it gets mangled, how matter and energy combat each other.

By understanding that the video image and sound both originated from the
electronic signal or the waveform, the Vasulkas realised that these two facets
of video could be easily separated or interchanged with each other in creative
ways, so that sound could create the image, or image could create the sound,
19
and that all their variables (brightness, pitch, speed etc.) could be pinpointed
and manipulated directly, either in isolation or combined with other variables.
A good example of this is Woody Vasulkas video C-Trend (1974) (Fig. 14,
Track 13) - made using the Rutt/Etra Scan Processor (Fig. 15) built by Steve
Rutt and Bill Etra in 1973 to create the illusion of 3D space - where sound and
image appear interchangeable on the screen. Similarly, in Violin Power (1978)
(Fig. 16) (Track 14), Steina is filmed playing a violin in a multitude of ways
(having been an accomplished musician prior to working with Woody), which
produce assorted effects to the video image. These vary from affecting the
switch rate of different camera inputs pointing at her depending on the speed
of her playing, through to a real time visual distortion of the image which
correlates to the waveform of her violin sound (presented both vertically and
horizontally, to more increasingly abstract images such as a combined visual
representation of the sound waveform and image waveform. Videos like this
would signify the direct relationship that video art had with experimental
music and other time-based art forms, and would also prefigure recent
experiments by artists combining music and video to achieve synaesthesia.

With the addition of the Digital Image Articulator to their arsenal, made by
Jeffrey Schier in 1978, their work would be strengthened as they moved into
early computer technologies with their later videos featuring sequences
predating modern day glitch art; for example, in their video Digital Images
(1978) (Track 15) showcasing this device contains many early examples of
what would later be recognised as visual characteristics of the glitch,
including replication, linearity and complexity (Moradi, 2004, pp.28-37),
20
produced by feedback whereby the output of the computer is sent back into
the input. The commentary from Woody and Steina is joyous whilst watching
these sequences due to their unique imagery - whether these images were
faulty or not was not a consideration then, making us wonder when exactly a
glitch was considered to be a glitch by computer manufacturers.

Compared to the work of artists like the Vasulkas, the contemporary
destructural artist works invariably in a post-analog world where the
equipment that was available to artists back then either no longer works
anymore or is expensive to maintain at the same time, these tools have been
overshadowed by digital technology and computers which can approximate
similarly imagery, often within a simple downloadable plug-in. For artists
who work with video in medium-specific terms, these glitch-alikes (Moradi,
2004, pp.10-11) are not quite the same. Whilst places like the Experimental
TV Center in New York still own a number of original working image
processors, they only hand out 40 annual artist residencies a year, meaning
image processing artists have had to turn to other creative means such as
circuit bending in order to produce new image processing techniques.

Circuit bending is according to Wikipedia (2004) the creative short-circuiting
of electronic devices, which can produce alien effects in equipment
unintended by the original manufacturers. Whilst this technique of joining
new circuits together by joining soldering wires together is often applied to
cheap musical equipment to create new sounds, potentially it can be done with
electronic devices that can produce imagery too, resulting in bent visuals.
21
The Dutch artist Karl Klomp is known for altering pre-existing obsolete video
equipment such as video mixers and character generators through the process
of circuit bending. Working as a technician and part time VJ, Klomp was
curious to attempt to apply circuit bending techniques to visual equipment
after collaborating with a musician called Tom Verbruggen who had made his
own circuit bent audio equipment. In an interview with William van Gleesen
(2009, p.37), Klomp recalls his encounter with the visual glitch:

I tried to do the same with video equipment. In doing so I stumbled upon awesome glitch
images that were created by the apparatus itself. [] I made circuit bend tools that I could use
in a live performance. Rejecting the standard effects, every tool got [sic] its own unique tasks
which created unique images. With minimal modification (making new connections in the
apparatus) to existing technology I let the hardware create original visuals.

In Rex (2005) (Fig. 17) (Track 16), Klomp uses a circuit-bent video mixer to
produce a wide range of often vicious visual effects which are edited to an
accompanying soundtrack by Verbruggen. The video recalls Malcolm Le
Grices classic structural film Berlin Horse (1970) compromised of looped
and manipulated found footage of a running horse, revealing the medium
qualities of the film stock. Using video, Klomps looped footage of a dog
being walked acts as an allegory for a tamed (or domesticated) technology,
but the erratic video bends applied to the image suggest the hidden primal
aggression of technology now being unleashed - no longer fully under the
manufacturers control - as a result of the destructural artists intervention
disobeying the rules of how they should use technology. Now that this device
is outside of a competitive marketplace, it is finally free.
22
The audiovisual work of the Australian duo Botborg, compromised of Joe
Sinclair and Scott Sinclair, expands the extreme medium-specific aesthetics of
image processing into a live setting, whereby sound, image and movement all
interact with each other creating a gesamtkunstwerk. Combining a complex
web of audio and video equipment, Botborg expands the synaesthetic ideas
previously explored in art by Wassily Kandinsky and the experimental
filmmaker Len Lye into a collaborative sound and video performance. The
duos name derives from the name Dr. Arkady Botborger, an obscure figure
from the turn of the 20
th
century who was responsible for developing the
esoteric science of Photosonicneurokineasthography, roughly translated as
"writing the movement of nerves through use of sound and light" according to
the duos website (2005), and they use this pseudo-science and figure as a
context for their performance work. In personal email correspondence with
Botborg in 2008, Scott Sinclair (the musician half of the duo, although the
roles easily merge together) wrote that:

Botborg is primarily a live improvised performance - it is all 'composed' in real-time - so there
is a large amount of chance involved. Without giving it all away... basically the technical
setup is complex enough (digital and analogue equipment going everywhere) that there is a
new image/sound for us to work with every time (like a ghost in the machine).

Comparing their studio-based performances on DVD (Fig. 18) Track 17)
with their live video performances available online via their website, the
difference between the two is minor (save for some updates in technology
producing new effects due to date differences) as each Botborg performance is
a full on sensory attack; screaming audio feedback akin to the experimental
23
noise music of Merzbow produces flickering, assaulting visuals that have
more in common with the hand-painted films of Stan Brakhage than video,
and this in return dictates the sound which then interact furthers with the
visuals, and so on. As in time-based practices such as musical improvisation,
whilst mistakes can occur in a players work, the interaction of others working
with this mistake (who may not even consider it a mistake) can lead to
interesting new developments; similarly, the structure that players work within
whether a genre, a duration or the capabilities of an instrument - determines
the direction and objective that the practice moves towards. Botborgs
objective is to purely work with a system that is purposefully uncontrollable
by its nature, one that can only generate mistakes as the internal logic of this
system dictates its practice their Sisyphean live performances are an attempt
to understand a beast which defies understanding. Part-scientific exercise,
part-sideshow, they present their findings to curious spectators who watch and
hear the experimenters further tease new effects, sounds and glitches out of
technology, ultimately revealing that despite our best intentions as artists to
control the electronic signal, our efforts are never ending as every new joining
wire to a circuit potentially opens up a new path for further discovery and
exploration.









24
Conclusion

The destructural artist is now more productive and inspired than ever. With
the internet allowing for easier access to communities of like-minded artists to
share work, ideas, information and knowledge, the possibilities of what can be
achieved with video and electronic moving images are evolving at a
tremendous speed. Whereas once artists worked out independently ways of
adapting technology to better befit them, nowadays artists are collaborating
with people from different artistic fields, corresponding with likeminded
artists online and sharing original techniques in video online with the world.

There is no set model for the destructural artist in history. From my research
they all originate from different backgrounds - from interests as varied as
filmmaking or music or sculpture or mathematics. They all exert a level of
focus in pushing their respective technologies beyond their primary functions.
Quite often I have found, most artists that I have written about have since
moved on from the works I have discussed they all tend to be made early on
in their artistic practice. These destructural exercises usually originate from
mistakes rather than pre-planned goals a large degree of chance is inherent.

Throughout my research, Ive become aware that the destructural aesthetic is
more prolific in some decades than in others; I believe that these bursts of
activity are dictated by the technologies available at the time. Early
destructural works from the late 1960s to early 1970s often feature a reductive
or repetitive preoccupation with the medium, limited to the abilities of video
25
technology available then. Works from the early 1970s to the late 1980s
involve a more constructive exploration of video by a second wave of artists
who explore video making either through art school or through the
proliferation of home video technology. Some create new equipment to push
the medium into new directions, or reappropriate older technology. Video art
had become established by the 1990s and the technology had advanced to a
point where more linear, straight forward approaches were favoured - some
computer or net art works continue the destructural approach however, as
artists were faced with a new medium for exploration and exploitation.
Recent destructural works combine digital video (which has pretty much
replaced analog video), computers and inexpensive second-hand technology
which can justify potentially destructive experimentation. The gallery space is
going out in favour of the live music venue, with more video artists
collaborating with musicians to explore synaesthesia, which can now be
technologically achieved to a degree. The glitch is now on tour like a virus.

Ultimately, the destructural artist is an opportunist working with whatever
technology is available to use and misuse. But I fear that already were
moving towards an increasingly instable digital future, where we happily
accept daily occurrences of the medium-specific flaw (low bit rate mp3s, slow
technology) if this is so, is there any need for destructural artists in a society
that has become accustomed to the glitch? Is a glitch still a glitch if we are not
troubled by its presence? McLuhan once said that If it works, its obsolete
(1964, p.24) - if this is so, maybe true subversion in future moving images
will be using restructural aesthetics, to fix this mess weve already made.
26
Illustrations List

Figure 1. Sony (1967) Sony CV-2400 Portapak [Video camera, videotape
recorder] Collection, Southwest Museum of Engineering, Communications
and Computations, Glendale

Figure 2. Hall, D. (1973) Vidicon Inscriptions [Video] Collection, LUX,
London

Figure 3. Lucier, M. (1975) Dawn Burn [Seven-channel video and slide
projection, seven video monitors, seven video laser discs, plywood, paint,
35mm slide] Collection, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Figure 4. Viola, B. (1981) Hatsu-Yume (First Dream) [Video] Collection,
ditions voir, Amsterdam

Figure 5. Critchley, D. (1977) Static Acceleration [Video] Collection, LUX,
London

Figure 6. Rist, P. (1986) Im Not The Girl Who Misses Much [Video]
Collection, Museum of Modern Art, New York

Figure 7. Rist, P. (1988) (Entlastungen) Pipilottis Fehler (Absolution -
Pipilottis Mistakes) [Video] Collection, Museum of Modern Art, New York

Figure 8. Horowitz, A. (1990) Maxell [Video] Collection, Gavin Browns
Enterprise, New York

Figure 9. Hall, D. (1976) This Is A Television Receiver [Video] Collection,
LUX, London

27
Figure 10. Rosler, M. (1985) If It's Too Bad to Be True, It Could Be
DISINFORMATION [Video] Collection, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles

Figure 11. Discenza, A. (2005) Backscatter [Video] Collection, Catherine
Clark Gallery, San Francisco

Figure 12. Murata, T. (2005) Monster Movie [Video] Collection, Electronic
Arts Intermix

Figure 13. Davis, P. B. & Ciocci, J. (2007) Compression Study #1 (Untitled
Data Mashup) [Video]

Figure 14. Vasulka, W. (1974) C-Trend [Video] Collection, Daniel Langlois
Foundation, Montreal

Figure 15. Rutt, B & Etra, S. (1973) Rutt/Etra Scan Processor [Scan Processor]
Collection, The Vasulkas, Santa Fe

Figure 16. Steina (1978) Violin Power [Video] Collection, Daniel Langlois
Foundation, Montreal

Figure 17. Klomp, K. & Verbruggen, T. (2005) Rex [Video]

Figure 18. Botborg (2006) ego is ether of cantabrigian the 93537829 in
immodest to salubrious [Video]







28
Illustrations

Figure 1.

Sony (1967) Sony CV-2400 Portapak [Video camera, videotape recorder]
Image obtained from http://www.smecc.org/video/wpe3A1.gif (Accessed: 5
December 2009)

Figure 2.

Hall, D. (1973-74) Vidicon Inscriptions [Video]. Image obtained from
http://www.rewind.ac.uk/uploads/medium/DH083-01s.jpg (Accessed: 30 July
2009)
29
Figure 3.

Lucier, M. (1975) Dawn Burn [Seven-channel video and slide projection,
seven video monitors, seven video laser discs, plywood, paint, 35mm slide].
Image obtained from Shanken, E.A. (ed.) (2009) Art and Electronic Media.
London: Phaidon Press Ltd., p.70
Figure 4.

Viola, B. (1981) Hatsu-Yume (First Dream) [Video]. Image obtained from
Hatsu-Yume (First Dream) (1981) Directed by B. Viola [DVD]. Amsterdam:
ditions voir
30
Figure 5.

Critchley, D. (1977) Static Acceleration [Video]. Image obtained from
http://www.luxonline.org.uk/images/artists/david_critchley/full/static09.jpg
(Accessed: 26 August 2009)

Figure 6.

Rist, P. (1986) Im Not The Girl Who Misses Much [Video] Image obtained
from
http://www.moma.org/collection_images/resized/584/w500h420/CRI_151584
.jpg (Accessed: 3 August 2009)
31
Figure 7.

Rist, P. (1988) (Entlastungen) Pipilottis Fehler (Absolution - Pipilottis
Mistakes [Video] Image obtained from
http://www.moma.org/collection_images/resized/582/w500h420/CRI_151582
.jpg (Accessed: 3 August 2009)

Figure 8.

Horowitz, J. (1990) Maxell [Video]. Image obtained from
http://www.gavinbrown.biz/img/gallery/JH-001.gif (Accessed: 26 August
2009)
32
Figure 9.

Hall, D. (1976) This Is A Television Receiver [Video]. Image obtained from
http://www.rewind.ac.uk/uploads/medium/DH088s.jpg (Accessed: 30 July
2009)

Figure 10.

Rosler, M. (1985) If It's Too Bad to Be True, It Could Be DISINFORMATION
[Video] Image obtained from
http://hammer.ucla.edu/image/1026/450/450.JPG (Accessed: 4 August 2009)
33
Figure 11.

Discenza, A. (2005) Backscatter [Video] Image obtained from
http://www.cclarkgallery.com/dynamic/images/detail/Anthony_Discenza_Bac
kscatter_885_45.jpg (Accessed: 26 October 2009)

Figure 12.

Murata, T. (2005) Monster Movie [Video] Image obtained from
http://www.thestranger.com/binary/e5f0/visart-magnum-500.jpg (Accessed:
16 May 2009)

34
Figure 13.

Davis, P. B. & Ciocci, J. (2007) Compression Study #1 (Untitled Data
Mashup) [Video] Image obtained from
http://vertexlist.net/B%20I%20T%20M%20A%20P_catalogue_files/image03
0.jpg (Accessed: 30 July 2009)

Figure 14.

Vasulka, W. (1974) C-Trend [Video] Image obtained from
http://www.vasulka.org/Videomasters/pages_stills/images/CTrend_02.jpg
(Accessed: 8 August 2009)

35
Figure 15.

Rutt, B & Etra, S. (1973) Rutt/Etra Scan Processor [Scan Processor] Image
obtained from Vasulka, W. & Weibel, P (ed.) (2008) Buffalo Heads: Media
Study, Media Practice, Media Pioneers, 1973-1990. Cambridge: The MIT
Press, p.401

Figure 16.

Steina (1978) Violin Power [Video] Image obtained from
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/36/114218223_57f0da02ca_o_d.jpg (Accessed:
8 August 2009)
36
Figure 17.

Klomp, K. & Verbruggen, T. (2005) Rex [Video] Image obtained from Rex.
(2005) Directed by Karl Klomp and Tom Verburggen [DVD]. Amsterdam:
Sonic Acts
Figure 18.

Botborg (2006) ego is ether of cantabrigian the 93537829 in immodest to
salubrious [Video] Image obtained from ego is ether of cantabrigian the
93537829 in immodest to salubrious. (2006) Directed by Botborg. [DVD].
New Zealand: Half/theory
37
Appendix 1
S A T U R D A Y , 2 2 A U G U S T 2 0 0 9
WHAT IS DESTRUCTURAL VIDEO?
Destructural video is an art movement of video and moving image artists who
aestheticize the exploration of medium specific flaws which perpetrate themselves
as visual and/or audible glitches in their work.

Examples of medium specific flaws can include: video drop outs; digital artefacts;
imperfect codecs; static; noise; nth generation video damage; circuit bent
hardware; data manipulation (e.g "datamoshing"); faulty or unorthodox wire
connections; video feedback; corrupt filetypes; crashes; computer glitches; camera
glitches; synthesized images; creative viruses; affected videotapes, CD-ROMS,
DVDs, media players, computer programs, video games, televisions, games consoles
etc.

Although destructural video is a new term to describe this movement, destructural
video itself is not new and its origins can be seen as far back as the history of video
art itself. Indeed, as long as video has existed as an artistic tool to use, the need to
explore what its technological limits are have always been an important source of
concern and curiosity to artists. It can be argued that whilst technology is still
developing, ultimately it will never become perfect due to human interference -
therefore flaws should always exist, just waiting to be discovered and exploited by
artists. The glitch prevails!

I have used the term 'destructural video' for a number of reasons. Firstly,
destructural' is a portmanteau (or, if you will, a corruption) of the words
'deconstruct', 'structural' and 'destruct'. Artists involved in destructural video
'deconstruct' the moving image medium not only on a physical/visual level, but
often on philosophical levels too. Structural relates to structural[-materialist] film,
an earlier art movement that looked at medium specificity and the idea of "film as
film"; destructural video extends further upon this idea of structural-materialist
film philosophy, but is not solely limited to film. Finally, artists working in
destructural video will often employ destruction of the medium they are using in
order to produce the results they desire. (July/August 2009)

38
Appendix 2

Destructural Video
(http://rhizome.org/discuss/view/43738)


Posted by John McAndrew on September 21, 2009 7:24 am

Hello everyone, this is my first post to Rhizome so please be gentle!
My name is John McAndrew and I'm a Fine Art student at the University of
Cumbria. I'm currently writing my dissertation on the history of video and
moving image art, but with a focus on artists that exploit flaws and glitches in
the video medium and use them to their benefit. I've self-dubbed this
particular strain of video art 'destructural video'. I've been researching this
subject for a few months now and am slowly bringing together all my findings
into my first draft (the final copy isn't due until
December/January). I figured some of you might find what I'm writing about
interesting. You can find more information regarding my subject at my blog
(here) and also on this Facebook group (here). Both are a bit empty when it
comes to discussion from people other than myself, so if anyone wants to
contribute in some way by posting some comments or recommendations then
it'd be really appreciated! I'd especially love to hear from any artists who
wants to share some of their work with me, or discuss 'destructural video' too.
Once I finish the dissertation I'll be sure to post a link here for you all to read.

I'm looking forward to hearing from some of you! Hell, even if it's just to
criticize the term 'destructural video'...

Comment by Mary Hull Webster
September 21, 2009 2:14 pm
Hi John,
I like both the term destructural and the idea of destructuring video. I have a
video that relied on low-res taping of a moving sculpture I made. I continued
to break up the image, over and over, using Final Cut Pro, reshooting my
computer screen with a video camera, etc. The final piece is called A Chorus
of Cells, and you can see it online at http://lookingforlucia.com/contn1.html,
which is a stand-alone video, but also part of a larger web fiction in progress.
I have another piece that was made in NTSC, then shown on a monitor set for
secam, which broke things up nicely....
No time right now to read your ideas--about to leave town for two weeks--but
it sounds interesting to me....destructuring is the heart of transforming
something from one state to another--the breakdown is the pivot point.
Best wishes, Mary
Reply to this post


Comment by John McAndrew
September 24, 2009 7:41 am
39
Hi Mary,
Thank you for your reply! I apologise for not replying immediately but
unfortunately I'm not always able to access the internet every day. I thought
your video A Chorus of Cells was quite interesting; even though the refilming
process is not a new thing, the use of multiple images really made it standout
for me as well as its unsteadiness. Admittedly it wasn't quite what I w as
looking for, but I appreciated you sharing it.
How ever. the piece you mentioned of a NTSC video being show n on a
monitor set for SECAM - now that's the sort of thing I'm interested in!
Like you said regarding destructuring (which was intentionally chosen as it's a
made up word, or rather a corruption of other words like "destruct",
"structural" and "deconstruct"), the breakdown is the pivot point. It's that fine
line, that tension, between something not working how you planned it or
expected it to, and it falling apart completely beyond repair. Technological
conflicts, unorthodox ways of using the video as a medium, breaking
established rules set by broadcasting standards etc - these are things what I
find fascinating. Like when you watch a DVD or listen to a CD, and the media
format is corrupt in a way or affected, and things start skipping or playing up,
which immediately pulls you out of the comfort zone. Then you realize you're
not listening to music or not transported to an imaginary life away from
your own, but rather you're listening to or watching an emulation or a
synthesis of these representations. And whilst many people would be driven
insane by these glitches, I find a beauty in them. This is a small factor of what
destructural video constitutes for me!
By the way, the idea of breaking down the illusionary properties when you
watch a video is one of the reasons I chose "destructural" as my term; as I've
mentioned else where on my other links, "destructural" links in with and
relates to "structural" as in structural filmmaking, which promoted an anti-
illusionary w ay of creating (and therefore viewing) films. Whilst it's
admittedly a somewhat dated sort of modernist art movement, and very
formalist in its philosophy, I do feel there's been a resurgence of artists
interested in similar film-as-film (or now rather, video-as-video) principles.
Where I feel destructural video expands upon structural film, is that artists
have taken these formalist ideas but used them with new media forms such as
video or computer-assisted visuals, and with these new technologies the
potential to realise more extreme forms of anti-illusionary revelations come
into play. You're no longer editing films frame by frame ala Sharits, but
editing the very data or DNA of something ala Arcangel. And with these come
new ways of watching things seemingly fall apart in front of your very own
eyes.
If it would be okay with the moderators of Rhizome, can I use this thread to
post links to videos or artists that I feel represent destructural video? That way
it would save me from making new separate posts every time I want to share
something that I feel is relevant to my subject, and hopefully keeps everything
tidy and all under this one thread? If this goes against the etiquette of this
discussion board, then please let me know. Failing that, I recommend that
people have a brow se on the Facebook group I mentioned and look at some
of the artists I mention in the ever-growing discussion threads there (some of
the contributors to Rhizome might even be mentioned?). And again, please
join and contribute if you feel so inclined!
40
Comment by Mary Hull Webster
October 15, 2009 11:00 am
John, all this is very interesting...I went to your blog, tried to look at the list of
artists, but the ones I wanted to see restrict info for casual visitors, so I
couldn't see what they were doing without committing myself to their sites.
One of the great things about the Net is that a person can be solo, NOT
connected by choice to lots of people, NOT moving in a crowd, but can post
work and ideas, which I love seeing from all over.
It seems to be that one of the philosophical ideas embedded in destructuring
has to do with getting past the group mentality, ANY group mentality, to see
what an individual does. Of course your purpose in writing a dissertation is to
consider a group of artists who seem to be working along similar lines--and to
make some comments that may draw a circle around them, much as a curator
does. I've bookmarked your blog and will check back. By the way, the original
footage in my piece, A Chorus of Cells, was of one moving sculpture with
lights inside it. It was in the intentional degradation of the footage over a long
process that the image was broken into multiple images. It seems to me that
you are cycling back into the formal pursuits of Modernism, as I
am...eventually, all of the "positioning" of artists within collective causes gets
dry and my interest becomes forced because there is no formal hook that
engages my eyes. I guess you know about Nicolas Bourriaud's "altermodern"
show at the Tate. My students near San Francisco are very interested in his
ideas.
With best wishes, Mary

Comment by marc garrett
October 15, 2009 11:25 am
Hi there,
I am also interested in Nicolas Bourriaud, he is not a great man, more of a top-
down patriarchal thief , imposing his ego-centered modernist (non)values, on
others to submit to, in hope of a profile in history... Those who follow him are
not only sheep, they are lost sheep ;-)
you may be interested in this article here:
Altermodernism: The Age of the Stupid - by Ellie Harrison.
http://www.furtherfield.org/displayreview.php?review_id=360
"Postmodernism is dead" declares Nicolas Bourriaud in the opening line of his
manifesto for our new global cultural era - the 'altermodern'. As a preface to
the latest Tate Triennial exhibition of the same name, the French curator and
theorist sets about defining what he sees as the parameters of our
contemporary society and offering paradigms for artistic approaches to
navigating and negotiating them.
This essay aims to identify what the birth of this new era tells us about our
culture's relationship to time. It will explore how we choose to define the
periods in which we live and how our relationships with the past, present and
future seem to constantly evolve. As a central focus, it brings together two
examples of cultural events from 2009 which have both, in semi-revolutionary
ways, attempted to define our
current age. The Altermodern exhibition and its accompanying Manifesto
(Bourriaud 2009b) launched at the Tate Britain on 4th February provides the
first, and the second is provided by The Age of Stupid - a feature film and
41
accompanying environmental campaign launched in UK cinemas on 20th
March.
Set in the year 2055, The Age of Stupid focuses on a man living alone in a
world which has all but been destroyed by climate change. In an attempt to
understand exactly how such a tragedy could have befallen his species and the
society and culture which they created over the course of several millennia, he
begins to review a series of 'archive' documentary clips from 2008. His aim is
to discover how his ancestors -
the one generation of people w ho had the power to prevent the impending
disaster - could have demonstrated such disregard or contempt for the future.

By focusing on two central texts - Bourriaud's Altermodern Manifesto and a
faux encyclopedia entry from the future which retrospectively defines 'the Age
of Stupid' released as promotional material for the film (Appendix One) - the
essay aims to explore the disturbing continuities between these two
perceptions of our current times and the drastic consequences these could
have, if left unchecked, for the future of humanity and indeed the future of art.
Comment by Kate Southworth
November 3, 2009 3:21 pm




Hi Marc,
I couldn't disagree with you more. I've been writing about the similarities and
differences between net art and 'relational art' for the last few months and have
read and re-read several texts by Nicolas Bourriaud. And it seems to me that
(in Relational Aesthetics, for example) he articulates very well indeed the
socio-economic context within which artists were making work during the
1990s. He understands, I think, the significance of the shift to artists devising
the parameters of the situation within which inter-subjective encounters
emerge.
I think his articulation of these shifts is highly relevant to anyone working in
the emerging areas of distributed network art, and especially to anyone, like
me, obsessed with the role of protocol in distributed work.
I haven't got the quote exactly, but ten years ago, Nicolas Bourriaud was
asking 'what is the 'glue'' that holds relational work together.
What a killer question!
Ten years later, I'd suggest, possibly, that protocol is the 'glue' that that holds
temporally and spatially discrete elements together and is the organising frame
of relational, network and other non-centralised contemporary art practices.
all my very best
Kate







42
Comment by Mary Hull Webster
November 3, 2009 6:00 pm
Kate et al,
Some years ago I had a fleeting realization that eros as heat or energy, which
may be the source of connective glue within quantum physics, the net, or sex,
is a palpable principle that attracts me very much. This view probably falls
back to Freud's pleasure
principle. In a sense what attracts me to the net, the phrase "relational art," to
the Tate Modern exhibition online, and to beauty in art, is pleasure.
Along with this attraction, I want to be as conscious as possible, and certainly
lean politically to the left and progressive causes for the wellbeing of all
persons on the earth. I am still entranced by Barack Obama because I perceive
his philosophical position to be one of erotic integration of warring opposites.
Most of my art is influenced by this position, which I find as well in
Buddhism, Taoism, and the opposites in Jungian psychology. This looks like a
re-emergence of a meta idea that I need, or a Neo-Platonic position, or maybe
an "altermodern," or a sort of neo-romantic shift. The terms don't matter and
nobody is being pressed to join up. These are my interests, maybe not yours.


So, if you, Kate, think protocol is the glue that allows you and me to talk to
each other, that's fine with me, but it's the eros between us that calls me to the
platform. I'd be interested in reading some of your work. You can contact me
at mhwdotcom@comcast.net if you would like to share some links or
references.
With best wishes, Mary

Comment by Kate Southworth
(Replies won't nest below this level)
November 4, 2009 2:15 am
Hi Mary and others,
I should clarify that I don't think that protocol is the glue that allows you and
me to talk to each other - but that maybe it is the glue that holds together art
that is made from discrete elements. Extending Alexander Galloway and
Eugene Thacker's writings, I see protocol as that which organises and controls
discrete elements within any distributed system. Protocol as a medium enables
the portability of relational artworks and artworks without a central point of
focus. So protocol is useful, but nonetheless is a system of control. I am
particularly interested in how artists 'come to' systems of control - in particular
Agnes Martin's grids and Sol LeWitt's alogorithms. I would suggest that both
Martin and LeWitt work within a logic of co-existence: that is, they don't
destroy the grid, or algorithm, but they do fragilise it.
I'll send you a couple of papers that I presented at this year's ISEA in Belfast
which start to map some of these ideas.
all my very best
kate




43
Comment by nicolas bourriaud
November 3, 2009 10:12 am
Dear Marc Garett,
I will have a look at the "age of stupid", which sounds like being in my field
of interests... Concerning the "sheeps" that would "follow" me : I think I only
have readers. Hopefully.
The sheeps have to be counted, according to me, among the ones who believe
blindly the massive caricatures of my point of view in the english mainstream
press AND their reflect, aka some self proclaimed guardians of the marxist
temple. So, please, read the texts (and not the press releases, by the way).
And, f rankly, if you knew me, you would be ashamed of seeing me as
"patriarchal"... (big laugh)
All the best,
NB

Comment by marc garrett
November 3, 2009 10:39 am
Hi Nicolas,
Thank you for your response. If you wish me to see observe your contexts,
then it is only fair that you discover what I am part of... wishing you well,
perhaps we will meet one day :-)
p.s. You do sound cute ;-)




























44
Comment by Nick Briz
November 3, 2009 7:41 pm
Hey John,
I'm currently working towards my MFA at the School of the Art Institute of
Chicago and my focus is very similar. We differ in that maybe I'm a bit more
concerned with the digital glitch specifically, as I'm very interested in the way
that it relates to digital culture. However, after looking at your blog I noticed
there's definitely a lot of overlap in our interests. Some things:


Here's an article I wrote on Glitch Art recently:
http://fnewsmagazine.com/wp/2009/10/titleglitch-amp-arttitle/
I also put this together:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glitch_Art
Here's a link to some of my work:
http://www.nickbriz.com/videos/ANewEcology.mov
http://vimeo.com/4529527
http://rhizome.org/object.php?o=48468&m=1057411
I've also been very interested in curating this kind of work. I curated a
program called Glitch Night in Orlando FL last year and I'm curating a
program called Glitch: Investigations into the New Ecology of our Digital
Age here's a flyer for that:
http://nickbriz.com/New_ecology_poster.pdf
I can email you program notes/associated writings if you'd like.
Also here are others that have written on/worked with Glitch Art which you
might find interesting:
Evan Meaney (evanmeaney.com)
http://evanmeaney.com/glitching/theory/evan_meaney_onglitching.pdf
Rosa Menkman (rosa-menkman.blogspot.com)
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1332959/Rosa%20Menkman%20-
%20Artifacts%20and%20Critical%20Media%20Aesthetics.pdf
Iman Moradi (http://www.organised.info/)
http://designingimperfection.com/
http://www.oculasm.org/glitch/dow
nload/Glitch_dissertation_print_with_pics.pdf
Richard Almond (http://blog.rafolio.co.uk/)
http://rafolio.co.uk/maadm/thesis/projectreportweb.pdf
Hope this helps, There's a lot more w here this came from, just let me know.
-Nick-
(nickbriz@gmail.com)










45
Comment by John McAndrew
November 4, 2009 10:27 am
Wow! I don't visit Rhizome for a few weeks, expecting hardly any replies to
appear, and then come back to this! Thanks everyone for your responses -
even if some went off on unexpected but all together welcome tangents (I
never would have expected Nicolas Bourriaud to post here of all places!).
Obviously I need to use this site more. Like you said Mary, Bourriaud's quite
influential with art students and I know a
number of people on my course are especially inspired and influenced by his
opinions. I find his book Postproduction more to my liking and interests.
Nick, all those links are great! I'm familiar with a few names that you mention
but others are less well known to me (I'm more familiar with video art, rather
than new media art), so thanks! I tend to use the term "medium-specific fault
or flaw" as my definition of what a glitch entails is perhaps a little too all-
encompassing; especially when mentioned in relation to the history of video
art, for me the glitch spans right from analog disruptions all the way to digital
glitches. Nevertheless, our interests are firmly implanted in provoking an
electronic medium into doing things it wasn't intended to do. It's interesting
you mention Iman Moradi - his dissertation for example was one of the first
papers I read re: glitch art and aesthetics, and somewhat frustratingly I found
it covered a lot of subjects I originally set out to write about (although he did
it 6 years before I did!). Incidentally, he also happens to live about 10 miles
away from my home town, ha!
We've since corresponded a few times to each other online and I'm actually
hoping to meet him in person next week all being w ell. Again, thanks again
to everyone for replying! It's given me a much needed push in getting this
dissertation done...

Comment by Nick Briz
November 4, 2009 1:54 pm
Absolutely, in terms of glitch as a "medium-specific fault or flaw " there is an
analog history that predates the digital one, and if we consider glitch as simply
a disturbance/flaw in a system it has a history that can predate even electronic
analog technology, Jon Satrom (A professor here at the Art Institute of
Chicago and fellow glitch enthusiast) adopts a similar mindset. That there's a
long history for the
appreciation, or rather interest, in "errors" and/or "accidents" is for sure, I
guess I've just been more taken by the digital kind (for varies reasons,
including, as I mentioned before my interest in glitch's relation to digital
culture).
good luck with you're dissertation, I'm very interested in reading it when
you're finished!






46
DVD Track Listing


Nb. Most videos are full length and taken from high quality sources; others
which originate from online are of a reduced quality. Some videos may be
excerpted.

Track 1: Hall, D. (1973-74) Vidicon Inscriptions [2:36]
Track 2: Viola, B. (1981) Hatsu-Yume (First Dream) [4:38]
Track 3: Benglis, L. (1972) Noise [0:29]
Track 4: Critchley, D. (1977) Static Acceleration [13:32]
Track 5: Rist, P. (1986) Im Not The Girl Who Misses Much [4:57]
Track 6: Rist, P. (1988) (Entlastungen) Pipilottis Fehler (Absolution -
Pipilottis Mistakes) [11:20]
Track 7: Hall, D. (1976) This Is A Television Receiver [7:32]
Track 8: Rosler, M. (1985) If It's Too Bad to Be True, It Could Be
DISINFORMATION [16:32]
Track 9: Discenza, A. (2005) Backscatter [0:52]
Track 10: Murata, T. (2005) Monster Movie [4:09]
Track 11: Davis, P. B. & Ciocci, J. (2007) Compression Study #1 (Untitled
Data Mashup) [1:59]
Track 12: Davis, P. B. (2007) Compression Study #4 (Barney) [2:49]
Track 13: Vasulka, W. (1974) C-Trend [8:26]
Track 14: Steina (1978) Violin Power [9:53]
Track 15: Steina & Vasulka, W. (1978) Digital Images [3:59]
Track 16: Klomp, K. & Verbruggen, T. (2005) Rex [3:23]
Track 17: Botborg (2006) ego is ether of cantabrigian the 93537829 in
immodest to salubrious [5:46]

47
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